Tips on repurposing junk as planters

By: Julie Young | Times-Dispatch
Published: June 05, 2009

From European urinals to a farmer's backhoe, Rebecca Cole has seen it all when it comes to container gardening.

Cole is author of "Potted Gardens -- A Fresh Approach to Container Gardening" and owner of Rebecca Cole Design, a floral, garden and interior-design business in New York City.

"My philosophy is that if it's capable of making a drainage hole and holding a pot, it's probably a garden container," said Cole.

She has seen an abandoned car serving as a massive planter in a New Hampshire yard and a backhoe, trapped under a 150-foot tree, turned into a container garden. "Wonderful woodland grasses were growing in the cage of this backhoe," she said.

There are no rules when it comes to repurposing an object as a plant vessel -- but Cole does recommend looking at it objectively.

"My No. 1 criterion is that if it's not attractive to begin with, drawing attention to it by planting something in it is not going to make it any more beautiful," she said.

Potted plants in most areas of the country look nice for only five to seven months of the year, thus another bit of Cole wisdom:

"Your container had better be pretty darn cute without anything in it."

Here are more of her container-gardening tips:

If you come across a beautiful porcelain bedpan, for example, "the fact that it's a bedpan is probably going to freak people out," she said. The same goes for toilets and other distasteful objects.

If you can't drill a drainage hole, don't use it for plants. Lining the bottom of a container with rocks will not aid drainage, Cole noted. "You're going to end up with rotted water because it has no place to evaporate."

Line the container with an industrial-strength garbage bag so that it doesn't rust and overdose your plant on iron.

Repeat, repeat, repeat. If you group containers, be sure they have a common element. Don't hang just one sap bucket on your garden wall -- hang seven, but put the same plant in each one for continuity.

Look to architectural elements and industrial items to jazz up an urban garden.

Contact Julie Young at (804) 649-6732 or jyoung@timesdispatch.com.